Attorney General Facing A Conservative And Radical Liberal In General Election

Nick Caito / Special to The Courant

A conservative Republican and a left-wing Green Party candidate hope to end 55 years of Democratic control of attorney general's office. That leaves incumbent Democrat, George Jepsen, shown here, with a lot of room in the political middle.

A conservative Republican and a left-wing Green Party candidate hope to end 55 years of Democratic control of attorney general's office. That leaves incumbent Democrat, George Jepsen, shown here, with a lot of room in the political middle. (Nick Caito / Special to The Courant)

Will Democrats continue their 55-year-long run in control of attorney general's office?

HARTFORD — The last time a non-Democrat held the office of attorney general in Connecticut was in 1959. The current Democratic occupant, George Jepsen, was all of 5 years old back then.

In this election, Jepsen is being challenged by opponents who occupy opposite ends of the political spectrum and have very different approaches to the campaign.

Republican Kie Westby is a conservative lawyer from Thomaston who believes that Connecticut must drop its "anti-business attitude" that he claims has driven companies out of the state and hurt job growth. He's also an NRA member opposed to new state gun controls passed after the Sandy Hook killings, and a harsh critic of Common Core educational standards.

Green Party candidate Stephen Fournier is proudly "to the left of the other two" in the race. He considers the federal government an "enemy of the state of Connecticut," and wants to investigate its role in the 9/11 disaster. Fournier thinks that many voters are as angry as he is with big government and big business.

Jepsen's challengers are leaving the incumbent a lot of room in the political middle. Like his predecessors in the attorney general's office, Jepsen casts himself as a champion of consumers and a defender of personal privacy.

It's a tried-and-true formula, and a recent opinion survey by Public Policy Polling indicates that it might well be working again: The poll gave Jepsen a 15-point edge against Westby and a 36-point advantage against Fournier.

Both Jepsen and Westby are planning on using the state's public campaign finance system, which would give each more than $812,000 in taxpayer money to spend on this election. Fournier isn't seeking any public election funding, and expects to spend less than $1,000 on his third-party candidacy.

Jepsen last week put up his first TV campaign ad of the race. Westby, who only recently made his formal application for public financing, is hoping for a quick approval so that he can respond with his own TV commercials.

In 2010, Jepsen won his first attorney general contest with 53.7 percent of the vote. Republican Martha Dean — another GOP conservative — pulled 43.6 percent, while Fournier got 2.9 percent of the ballots cast.

"I lost by 400,000 votes," Fournier said with a laugh of his 2010 defeat. "It must be a record."

The office of Connecticut's attorney general has served as a launch pad for two of this state's most successful Democratic politicians. Joe Lieberman and Richard Blumenthal, Jepsen's immediate predecessor, both ended up as U.S. senators.

Jepsen, a former state senator from Stamford and a former state Democratic Party chairman, said he doesn't have similarly lofty ambitions. "I have no thoughts or plans [for running for higher office]," he said.

Although Blumenthal was famous for his almost constant news conferences and his addiction to high-profile controversies, Jepsen has taken a somewhat quieter approach during his first four years in office.

That hasn't stopped his office from involvement in a bunch of big cases, including the banking industry's mortgage foreclosure scandal, e-book pricing investigations, and most recently a lawsuit against Standard & Poor's that claims the financial rating agency has misrepresented some of its securities analysis.

Striving For Balance

"I think we've set a tone that says you can be strongly pro-consumer but pro-business as well," Jepsen said of his first four years. He said he's pushed for legislation that helped "level the playing field" for electricity suppliers in Connecticut, and sought to take action against companies that were looking for unfair advantages against their competitors and consumers.

As for the long Democratic dominance of the attorney general's spot, Jepsen said he believes that "the public at large views the attorney general as someone who should be out there fighting for the average citizen and small businesses that don't have the resources to protect themselves."

"I think that tradition dovetails more closely with Democratic values than with Republican values," Jepsen said.

Jepsen, 59, was born in Hattiesburg, Miss., and grew up in Greenwich. He's a graduate of Dartmouth College, received his law degree from Harvard and served as a state representative and senator for 16 years. He and his wife, Diana, now live in West Hartford.

Fournier happens to think that Jepsen is "probably one of the best attorney generals we've had in a while." Westby disagrees.

"The attorney generals of the past 20 years have had a very anti-business attitude and that has hurt Connecticut," Westby said in a recent interview. He claims that Jepsen and his Democratic predecessors have put people out of business, compelled businesses to leave the state and discouraged others from coming in.

But Westby offers no specific examples of companies that have been forced to close by lawsuits by the attorney general's office, nor can he name any specific business that has left Connecticut as a result of the attorney general's actions.

"I've had several people tell me they were forced out of business," Westby said, "but that's anecdotal evidence."

"I know a lot of gun manufacturers are contemplating leaving. ... It's just the general atmosphere that's been created," he said.

Westby, 63, was born in Torrington and grew up in Thomaston, where he now practices at his own law firm. Westby is a graduate of Wesleyan University and received his law degree from Cumberland Law School in Birmingham, Ala. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps, and now lives in Southington with his wife, Laura. The couple has two daughters.

His political career includes an unsuccessful run for Congress in 2010 in Connecticut's 5th District, and a losing bid for the 2012 Republican U.S. Senate nomination.

Westby said that he would like to see Connecticut's recently approved gun controls rolled back, but knows that would depend on a major change in the makeup of the Democrat-dominated General Assembly.

He is critical of Jepsen for failing to block the controversial Common Core educational standards. "In my opinion, Common Core is an extreme invasion of personal privacy … that usurps the traditional role of local communities in how to set [school] curriculum," Westby said.

Westby maintains that he's got "a good chance" to end the Democrats' 55-year-long control of the attorney general's office.

Fournier is only hoping for more than 1 percent of the vote so that his Green Party may continue to qualify for an automatic spot on the state ballot in four years. "I'm going to get killed," he said with a laugh of his chances in this election.

"I think it's my duty … to register my dissatisfaction," Fournier said of his determination to run despite the odds against him. "I'm so angry," he said. "If I shared my true feelings with you, I wouldn't get a single vote."

The feelings and opinions he does share are unapologetically radical.

Fournier believes that the federal government either orchestrated or allowed the 9/11 terrorist attacks to happen to "increase its power and consolidate its power." He argues that the federal government has stopped even trying to regulate or control multinational corporations and allowed "widespread abuse of workers" and a host of other actions that has led to a declining quality of life for most people.

A lifelong resident of Hartford, Fournier graduated from the University of Connecticut. His work history includes a stint as assistant corporation counsel for the city of Hartford, jobs as editor and counsel for a legal publication, and practicing law. He is married to the former Ruth Tomasko, and is now "mostly retired."

As for his approach to politics, Fournier, 69, sums it up this way: "I was an angry young man, and now I'm an even angrier old man."